


no real scent, only the memory of it

by xpatxperience



Category: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, M/M, Soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 17:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10283846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpatxperience/pseuds/xpatxperience
Summary: Overnight Tom Sawyer became Private Thomas Sawyer and was sent overseas to sock old Hitler on the jaw. He was going to get all the adventure he craved as well as some he maybe didn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Like listen guys i am just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. I have no plan. There is no plan. There are three and a half of us in this fandom so if anyone wants me to write something I’LL DO IT. message me on tumblr @ i-am-arkham-asylum.tumblr.com   
> please i need your reassurance. I blog about a lot of things that aren’t classic literature i promise.   
> I'm just tryin provide for this small family.   
> \--  
> Also this is a birthday present for Sydney. May your mother die a hundred fiery deaths!!!

**Ten minutes before**

War was supposed to turn boys into men. And as Tom stood ankle deep in the intestines of his fallen soldiers, he supposed it did. War turned boys into men and then men into corpses. Over the course of the two wretched years Tom had the military honor of serving in this God forgotten war his life had been taken from him. Sure, he might not have a bullet in his neck -yet- but everything about the starry eyed twenty year old that was shipped over the Atlantic to sock old Hitler on the jaw was left on the battlefield along with the bodies of most members of the 13th Infantry. He had forgotten what fresh air smelled like, had forgotten what is was like not to have blood staining his skin a permanent maroon and the smell of iron seeing out of his veins. Or better yet, to stop having other people blood seeping onto his skin. 

    “Tom. We need your help moving this gunner. Charlie busted his leg and can’t help any more.” Those were the usual commands asked of Tom now. Long gone were the days of pretty dames asking him if he wanted to grab a bite to eat or go dancing.  _ But you were never into dames were you Tom _ . The voice from his head almost stops his heart. Almost- because he’s sure that there is a Nazi bullet with his name on it and he knows too well the effects of trying to outrun fate. It’s a voice that stopped talking after thirty two pieces of shrapnel lodged into the soft lungs of Private Huckleberry Finn during a blitzkrieg attack. It’s a voice that Tom had become dependent on keeping him sane after shooting copper into other humans for a living. 

**Eight hundred and sixty-four thousand minutes before**

“Are you a time traveller sir?” The man takes a seat next to Tom, who previously had been staring a million yards out into the distance letting his mind wander to all the places in his brain to keep it from thinking about the future. 

    “I’m sorry.” Tom says pulling himself out of his reverie. He heard the words come out of the man's mouth but they seem to make so sense whatsoever, so he must have heard him wrong.

    “A time traveler sir. You already look dead and we haven’t seen any fire fight yet.” The man said with a smile that could have powered Thomas Edison's first lightbulb. “I was just making sure you haven’t seen this entire infantry shot to pieces and are now being forced to live it over and over again.” Tom stares at the man blinking slowly trying to comprehend how someone could start a conversation with that. 

     “No. I’m not a time traveler. Just got drafted that’s all. Not sure how to quiet register all of, “ Tom gesticulates to the militant scene that surrounds them, “this.” He finishes lamely. 

     “Ah I see. Uncle Sam wants you fighting the good fight rather than you fighting for him?” The man says instilling the feeling in Tom that he has no urge to move from Tom's side. “Well let me tell you. I registered because no way am I letting some mustache freak slaughter my peers.”

    “You’re Jewish?” Tom asked. 

    “Something like that.” He replied with a smile that couldn’t quiet be called a smile as how it never really reached his eyes to mean happiness. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we agree to battle them good for nothing Nazi’s together? With someone having your six we’re bound to make it back to the good old US of A in one piece.”

    “I don’t know your name.” As if knowing his name would solidify such an agreement as to be someone's partner in a war where they had no control over their rank, platoon, infantry or even where they took a shit. “I’m Tom Sawyer.”

    “Huck Finn. It’s a pleasure to be serving with you Tom.” He stretched a hand out and Tom took is without a moment of hesitation. Tom liked the way his name fell from Huck’s lips. He seemed to be able to frame it with an emotion Tom couldn’t quite touch.     

**Three minutes before**

“Mow them down Tyrell! They’re still coming strong.” The sounds of shells going off deafen soldiers and overpower every other noise. Dirt explodes, forming mother nature’s bullets and rock slices through tender flesh as the battle commences around Tom. The Nazi’s came out of no where. One moment the dark French Forests were quiet and serene, the next they were filled with fire fight and bodies waiting to be composted into the ground. It was impossible to hear the colonel's orders over the continuous sound of jet engines because when those stopped the artillery picked up firing a counter-attack. Tom held his gun close to his chest as he dived behind a large oak tree, avoiding a hand grenade that was launched through the air as the Nazi’s raced to them tanks leading the battle. 

     “Everybody take cover!” The words sliced through the air during a single moment of silence. Tom instinctively turned towards the American accent. Just as his eyes made contact with the young soldier who must have yelled the warning he saw a swarm of flames cover the boy as a thundering sound of an exploding flame thrower engulfed the organic material with an unquenchable gluttony. The heat shot out in every direction dusting smoke on Tom and stealing the oxygen from his lungs and replacing it with a dark smoke. 

     The woods were on fire. Everywhere Tom looked the yellow are red flames lived. The sky had been possessed by dark grey ash as the fire ate through everything that lived. The wind picked up and began blowing the flames north, directly towards the attacking Nazi’s but the bullets didn’t stop. 

     “Move west!” A voice called out through the blaze. “I repeat! Move west!” Tom didn’t need to be told again. Using the smoke as a cover against the attacking Nazi’s Tom pulled the last bit of fresh air into his lungs and bolted through the forest, running like he had never run before. He could see the end of the flames reign ahead and he flew past tree after tree. His lungs were falling apart in his chest from the lack of oxygen and his eyes were covered in smoke induced tears making him unable to recognize anything except for the light at the end of the tunnel - or in this case, the lack thereof. 

    He left the flames behind him to engulf the Nazi’s who would no doubt fight until the death. Their charred bodies would be unrecognizable to Tom tomorrow when his infantry would probably go back and collect their ammunitions. Tom’s eyes locked onto the brigade of jeeps that were set off not two hundred meters from his position loading up men as fast as they could to return to base. He was so focused on getting there he didn’t notice the bullet fired from a nervous first time soldier until the cold metal had embedded itself into his calf, tearing his achilles tendon clear in half. 

**Ninty-three thousand two hundred minutes before**

“Let this be a warning to all of you.” The sergeant stood before the entire camp, his cameo clad body a symbol of power upon the rickety old wooden stage placed deep in the French countryside. “I don’t care how many Nazi’s you’ve bagged or how many Japs you’ve shot down, if you are caught participating in…” the sargent stops his speech unable to wrap his lips around the word, “..unhonrable conduct  you will be discharged without question.” Tom looks around at the solemn faces of his fellow soldiers and is unable to decipher what is happening in this meeting. Was there a coop he was unaware of? A protest for the war? Who would be protesting fascists? 

    “What the fuck is he talking about?” Tom whispers to Johnny, a blue eyed blonde haired ladies man who could look like a pictures actor even with mud smeared across his face. 

    “Haven’t you heard?” Johnny says giving Tom a shocked look. Tom shakes his head slowly. He’s heard a lot of things in the barracks but he’s sure that Kurt cheating on his wife with some French dame and Daniel being caught jacking it to a photograph of a pinup by the Colonel is not what the Sarg is talking about. “Blue discharges Tom. Thirty of them issued out yesterday.” Johnny shakes his head in disappointment. “Who would have thought. Right here thirty queers representing the American way.”

   “Yeah. Who would have thought…” Tom says carefully. His heart is screaming through his chest and he’s terrified Johnny can hear its cries. “So, how did they catch them bastards.” It hurts him to say it but he has to make sure _ they don't know _ . “Surely they aren’t...fornicating.” He finishes with a whisper saturated in scandal. 

   “Oh I hope not Tom. Nah. They military’s got spies you see. Sent out decoys to ensnare them and then turns em’ into the Sarg.” Johnny shivers as he says it. “I wouldn’t want to be a decoy even if they raised my pay twofold.” 

   “Thanks Johnny.” Tom slaps him on the back and starts to push through the crowd. The people around him are suffocating and make it impossible to digest the situation with their whispers and faces of shock. Gays? In  _ this  _ military? It’s more likely than you think. Finally he gets to the precipice of the crowd and pulls a large gulp of air into his lungs. It cleans his system and allows his thoughts to flow freely through his head. The gears move without clogging up from the carbon dioxide from words such as ‘faggots’ and ‘shoot them and be done with it’. He closes his eyes and runs a hand over his face calming himself. He will be fine. Even if he is gay it doesn’t mean anyone else has to know. 

     When he opens his eyes he sees someone walking quickly into the medical tent. Their posture is rigged, stress tightening their spine into a taut line. Tom isn’t one to peer into other people’s business but that’s the medical tent after all and if someone has malicious intent those soldiers can’t defend himself, now can they?  He glances over his shoulder at the crowd still hanging off each of Sarg’s words and quickly walks over the the white tent with determination in his steps. Nobody notices his disappearance and just as he is pulling back the white canvas the thought occurs to him that maybe he should have warned somebody incase it was an intruder.

     The medical tent was mostly barren except for one lonely soul laid out on a crimson stretcher, covered in bandages and moaning softly.   But there, standing in the corner trying desperately to steady his breathing was Huck.

    “Huck.” Tom rushed forward pulling Huck into his arms and squeezing him with all of his strength and love.  “Thank God you’re safe. I didn’t see you at the announcements and when I found out what happened I-I couldn’t stop thinking the worst.” He pulls back so he can look into his best friends face. “You better thank your lucky stars you ain’t gay Huck because they will send you home without so much as a goodbye. It’s horrible.” 

     “Yeah. I guess I should be thankful shouldn’t I.” Huck said staring down at the ground as if it held the answers to the universe that he so desperately craived. 

     “What in hell is that supposed to mean.” Tom asks. This isn’t like Huck at all. Huck is supposed to be filled with wisdom and passion. He’s the one supposed to be leading Tom through this hell hole of a war. Not looking like he’s been shot by some fucking fascist. 

      “It doesn’t mean anything Sawyer, just forget it okay.” Tom deflects the use of his nickname, obviously used to try and avoid the situation at hand. 

      “Don’t let all of this queer expulsion business irritate your head Huck. I’m sure with your handsome face and good resume even if you were a pansy they wouldn’t touch you.” Tom rushes out, trying to calm his friend but he knew deep down his words are only meant to calm his own nerves. “I mean- you- you were queer that is… which you ain’t” Tom clears his throat. He wishes he could clear those words from his said history. Huck just sighs at him, expelling something much more than air from his body.

     “It was either this or get married.” Huck says flatly. 

     “What?” Tom questions. This reminds him of their first ever meeting. Huck storming into his life- all grand words and beautiful smile and Tom being left behind to pick up the pieces of his heart.

    “I live with this old woman, Real old fashioned, church before everything else. She told me I could  go fight for freedom or I could marry the girl next door and raise her some grandkids. And I-I couldn’t even entertain the idea of me living out me entire life with some….some woman, no matter how pretty her face. Trapped in a picket fence life is the last thing I want. So I walked myself down to the registration office and decided to join the fight against Hitler and the Japs.” The story comes out of Huck’s mouth at lightning speed but somehow each word sticks into Tom’s brain perfectly. “And then I was sent off the some European country I knew nothing about and told to kill people I had never met an-and I thought to myself, this is it - this is where I lose it, but then I saw you. You were sitting there with death already in your eyes and I couldn’t let someone accept death before it had already happened and then once we started taking everything about you just felt right. I don’t even know when it happened one day I just realized I was in love with you and always had been. And so I’m sorry if I made you hate me but I can’t do this any-”

    Tom cuts off Huck’s words by stealing them into his mouth with a gentle kiss pressed into the other’s lips. He cups Huck’s face in his hands and threads his fingers through the others dirty hair. They are both covered in dirt and sweat but they learned to love each other that way. Tom pulls back, detaching himself from the other with great difficulty. His body seems to be magnetized to Huck’s.

    “I can tell you when I fell in love with you.” Tom whispers very seriously. Huck stares up at him in disbelief. “It was the moment you started narrating the Sarg’s inner thoughts during morning drills.” A smile breaks across Huck’s face and he shoves Tom hard in the chest.

     “You bastard.” Huck laughs out. “ You have got to be kidding me.” Tom just smiles for what feels like the first time since Pearl Harbor was bombed and leans his forehead against Huck’s. Perfectly content to figure out how the hell they are going to make this work later.

**Twenty seconds before**

“Pull your weight Bill.” Rowan shouted pulling Tom’s arm tighter around his shoulders. “He ain’t getting any lighter and the Nazi ain’t getting any deader!” The pain from Tom’s leg was ripping through his body numbing his senses to everything except the bullet that was lodged in his veins, now occupying space where flesh had been. 

     “He’s losing too much blood Ro.” Bill shouts back lifting Tom’s body into the bed of a jeep. “Punch it!” He screams to the driver. Tom feels the rumble of countryside fly underneath his body as the jeep takes off.

     “We’ve just got to keep him alive until we reach base. He’ll be fine.” Rowan said pulling a piece of fabric from God know’s where and wrapping it several times around Tom’s leg.

     “Base is thirteen miles away!” Bill cires. “I knew we should have taken a medic on this scouting trip.”

     Tom tunes out the bickering soldiers in favour of focusing on controlling his breathing. His mind leaves his agonizing body in favour of wandering around the unexplored parts of his mind desperately trying not to focus on the blood pooling underneath him. 

      “ _ This is quite a situation you got yourself in Tom. _ ” Tom throws his eyes opens and looks around the jeep. Trying to identify where the voice came from, but the only people in the jeep was Rowan and Bill who were probably taking bets on when Tom was going to die. “ _ Up here hot shot _ .” Tom looks up and sees Huck’s smiling face leaning over his body. 

     “You look like shit.” Tom says. It’s the only thing he can say. Blood is smeared across Huck’s cheek and his hair is matted down with mud and brain matter.

    “Did you say something Tom?” Rowan asks looking over to him with concern on his face. Tom ignores him because every nerve of his body is focused on the beautiful face above him. It shouldn’t be possible to be here. He saw him… he was there when...if just can’t be.

   “How-” Tom’s words come out staccato and rushed, “You. I. This? Huck.” His lover's name falls from his lips containing every single painful emotion he was muster it to hold. Huck lets out a joyful laugh and runs his fingers through Tom’s hair. It brings a small amount of pain reliever to Tom’s burning body. 

    “ _ You don’t need to say anything. I already know what you’re going to say. After all, I am a part of your brain _ .” Huck laughs out tapping slightly on Tom’s forehead as if to emphasize the point. 

    “How are you here?” Tom manages to ask. His brain is filled with wet thoughts, they slip through his synapses and he is unable to hold onto anything except for the fact that Huck is here holding his head while he bleeds out in a jeep racing through the French countryside. 

     “ _ I made you a promise _ .” Huck whispers once again carting his fingers through Tom’s greasy hair. “ _ I’ll always have your six. _ ” 

    “But I didn’t have-” Tom tries to say. It’s getting harder and harder to stay awake. Everything is mashing together into one picture and all he can focus on it Huck’s smile in what seems to be the watercolour painting of his life.

    “ _ Shut up Tom. _ ” Are the last words Tom registers before everything goes dark.

**Fourteen thousand three hundred and six minutes before**

“I’m telling you he was seriously crying. I ain’t never seen anything like it before. He just started going on about how valuable he was and everything. Don’t feel to bad for him though. Wherever he is going is a hella’ lot nicer than where we would be going.” The French countryside is filled with a pleasant breeze that picks up the militant atmosphere and whisks it away across the seas to other places not yet torn apart by shells of artillery. The sounds of summer are in the air, and one can finally hear them as the constant sound of bombs and machine guns falls silent for a moment, allowing two members of the 13th infantry to wander their way into Paris with their fellow soldiers to replace their war torn minds with laugher, smoking, and drinking. The two men find themselves separate from their fellow soldiers in a bar propped up by hope and spite alone, where Tom finds himself mesmerized by Huck’s adventure with a certain defecting Nazi.

    “So then what happened?” Tom asked, pushing for more details. This was probably going to be the most exciting part of his week so he might as well make it last. “Did they interrogate him or something?”

    “I haven't the slightest. They just hauled him away and that was that.” Huck takes a sip of his beer and winces a bit as he swallows. It’s been too long since all of them have been exposed to alcohol. No one had so much as thought a stray thought while running through the water and sand onto the French shores. They just did it. Now that France was safe in the hands of the Allied forces the higher powers that be were finally losing their tight grip and allowed soldiers some old fashion recreational free time. After all, they were the ones not dead on a beach. Might as well live it up while they still can. But Tom wasn’t having the thoughts of death and destruction fill his head when they were so close to stomping out those good for nothing fascists once and for all. Then he could go home and celebrate in a true American fashion and never touch a rifle again.

    “What are you going to do when all of this is over? Tom asks his partner, swirling around the last of his drink absent mindedly. “After the war any everthing I mean.” Huck pauses for a second and stares out across the table looking to the far wall for the answers to the universe. He bites his lip and thinks to himself for a moment. 

    “I’ve almost forgotten there’s an after. I’ve forgotten America almost altogether to be honest.” Huck says quietly. “This whole time I’ve just been telling myself to stay alive. I guess I never thought what to stay alive for. It’s just what everyone else was doing so I thought to myself - I might as well do that!” Huck laughs the words out but there is a certain sadness in his sentence that can’t be lost to the night no matter how bad Huck wants it to be forgotten. There is truth in humor and Tom addresses that. 

    “Well no plan is better than a shit plan.” Tom tells him nudging him with his arm. “And now you won't be disappointed by any outcomes. Your a certified winner in the eyes of the universe.” 

    “Maybe you’ve got a point in there somewhere. All I know is that I once i see that Brooklyn skyline I am never touching a god damn rifle again as long as I live.” Huck mumbles swallowing don't the last of his drink. “I don’t care if Napoleon himself rises from the grave I am letting somebody else do the shooting. It’s been fun Hitler but I sure as hell won’t miss you.” 

   “Well I’ll be damned Finn I was thinking the same thing. I tell you what,” Tom continues, “why don’t we have no plan together than. You told me we would stick this shit show of a war out together and we seem to be doing just fine so far. Why don’t we brave the mess that is to be repatriotization together as well.” A smile flourishes across Tom’s face as he says it. Suddenly he can see his whole life before him like he has never been able to before. He knows that factory jobs and terrible apartments await them in America but there is no one else he’d rather share so little with. They would figure out, together, just like they have done this entire war.  He is going to spend the rest of his life with this man whether he likes it or not. 

    “You know what Tom. I’d love tha-” Huck’s last word is stolen by a roaring that permeates the sky outside. It’s a deafening noise that crescendos suddenly. Before Tom can register what is happening Huck throws Tom to the ground with all of his weight. His body hits the ground as the windows let out a sickening crack. Then everything goes dark. 

    Paper wisps about the street curling in the wind, flying through the air, it bring an industrial autumn chill to the summertime. Ash covers Tom’s face and creates a dramatic background as strings of crimson blood drip down from his temple to his chin.  His lungs sputter to life, pulsing out dust and spit trying to pull in oxygen to his blood supply. His eyes fly open and he awakens to the sight of broken furniture and bodies strewn out across the bar that he remembers being filled with friendly chatter seconds ago. Has it been seconds? Minutes? Hours? His head seems to be filled with shrapnel as his thoughts rip and tear though his brain. He could move his legs and arms, nothing was broken or decorating the wall as intricate wallpaper. What happened? He tried to sit up but there was a solid weight pressing down on top of him keeping him pinned to the floor. He carefully pushes it off him vaguely processing that it’s Huck. He must have been knocked out during the blast. Tom hits him in the arm lightly, they need to get out of here before the next wave of bombs come. He sits up and notices that his chest is completely wet. He looks down and sees that blood has saturated the front of his uniform making a collage of green and maroon. His hands fly up to it trying to locate the source of the wound. No pain stems from that area yet his entire front is absolutely drenched. He can feel his heart sputter to life in his chest which only terrifies him more, the thought of bleeding out now, when they are so close to winning is not an option. 

     “Huck.” He hits his lover again. “I need your help. Something’s not right here.” He moves his arms and his legs around again double checking that nothing is broken or damaged. All the seems to be wrong is the pounding in his head, the ringing in his ears and the silence from his best friend. Tom turns over to shake Huck awake and that is when he notices the decor that permeates from Huck’s chest. Shining slivers of razor sharp shrapnel line themselves inside Huck’s abdomen creating a valley of deep lacerations. 

     “No. No. No. No no no no.” The word comes out of his mouth trying to bandage itself around the gaping wounds found in Huck chest. He presses his unstained hands down onto his chest trying to shove the blood back into his lover. Tom presses down harder and would reach inside his ribs and restart his heart right now if that's what it took to see those glassy brown eyes blink. Everything starts to blur, the corners of his vision star hazing and he is no longer able to see clearly. Tom is sure he is about to pass out when the first set of tears roll down his cheeks. He’s crying, he hadn’t even noticed. 

    “Huck. Come on. We can fix this.”  His tears fall down from his face and onto the Huck’s dragging red stains down the other's face like some deformed River Styx. “Huck just…” Tom cups his face pushing Huck’s brown hair back. His blood soaked fingers leave crimson streaks across Huck’s face giving only adding to his dealthy complexion. His agony pushes him towards screaming. He looks down onto the body that used to contain his everything and he drags it into his arms pulling their blood stained chest together again, trying to feel a heartbeat from the person he loves. He does not accept this silence. Huck has never been silent a day in his damn life. Whoever this corpse belongs to needs to bring Huck Finn back right now because Tom Sawyer needs him. Needs his terribly jokes, needs his knowledge about wildlife, needs his enthusiasm for state parks, but most of all needs him to tell Tom how to get through this war. Tom tightens his arms around him and presses his face into Huck's now blood covered hair and breathes in the fading scent of his lover.

   “I’m sorry. I am so- so sorry.” He breathes out. No one is around to hear it.  

**Two hundred and forty minutes after**

Tom always knew the service was going to be the death of him. Weather he was sent home with a blue discharge and forced to live a life of shame without the support of his fellow veterans and the government or bleeding out in a med tent with Nazi shrapnel lodged in his side. He never even entertained the thought that an eighteen year old from De Moines, Iowa would be spooked during his first combat encounter and shoot one bullet into his leg. Private Thomas Sawyer was pronounced dead at 13:23 when the thirteenth jeep carrying three members of the scout crew that were surprise attacked by a group of Nazi’s pulled into Base Camp Federico. They placed his body in the medic tent but by the time a nurse was to attend to him his heart had stopped beating. The two others in the jeep claimed that only one bullet had pierced his calf and he should be in stable condition. When two Privates were sent to bury his Private Thomas Sawyer they found no corpses in the medic tent. 


End file.
